Ilia Malinin defended his title in dominating fashion and Chelsea Liu and Balazs Nagy earned bronze on the second day of competition at 2023 Humana Skate America in Allen, Texas.
 
Malinin, the 2023 World bronze medalist, destroyed his personal-best free skate score, tallying 206.41, and eclipsed his overall best score ever of 288.44 scored at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2023 by more than 22 points, earning a total of 310.47. Both his free skate score and total score mark the highest scores in the men's event in Skate America history.

With the victory, Team USA has won Skate America every year since 2017 and stood on the podium every year since 2013.
 
Earlier in the day, Liu and Nagy, claimed a medal in their Grand Prix debut, crushing their international personal bests for the free skate and total score.
 
Sunday figures to also be another big day for the United States, with World champion ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates in prime position to repeat as titlists after winning the rhythm dance and Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito sitting in second and third, respectively, in the women's event.

Malinin Simply Superb
Malinin delivered one of the best performances in ISU Grand Prix Series history, landing four quads — two in combination — and earning Level 4 for all of his spins and footwork. He received positive grades of execution on all of his jumps for the first time in his senior international career.

Although Malinin did not include his signature quad Axel, the U.S. champion became the fifth man to ever break 300 points in an international competition. The others: Olympic champions Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu as well as Olympic silver medalists Shoma Uno and Yuma Kagiyama.

Performing to music from the "Succession" soundtrack by Nicholas Britell, Malinin showed that he has made significant strides not only technically, but also artistically under renowned choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne. His components score in the free skate was second only to that posted by silver medalist Kevin Aymoz. He still finished 31.38 points ahead of Aymoz.
 
"I was really not expecting this outcome," Malinin said. "I'm still speechless. I have no words to explain how I really feel. It's a mix of emotions. I put in so many hours and I think it really paid off that I took a lot of time to focus on everything, to try to improve everything to have the least amount of mistakes possible."
 
U.S. bronze medalist Andrew Torgashev climbed from 11th after the short program to finish seventh overall with a score of 219.67.

"It was good," Torgashev said. "Nothing really special about it. I was trying to get my marks done. Yesterday I got a little out of body, so I'm trying to stay in a controlled space and more of a comfort zone to just accomplish what I could."

Maxim Naumov, the 2023 pewter medalist, remained in 10th place following his free skate.

"It's not what I was hoping for obviously, but it's early in the season, so I'm using this as a stepping stone," Naumov said. "I have a lot of things to work on. Jumps didn't go my way this time but that's OK. I know exactly what I have to work on. The good thing is I felt great on stamina. That's one thing we've been working on a lot in training."

Japan's Shun Sato claimed the bronze.
 
Liu and Nagy Keep Improving, Earn Bronze
In just their second competition together, Chelsea Liu and Balazs Nagy carted home the bronze medal from Allen. The California-based team placed third in the free skate with a score of 116.43 en route to an overall score of 177.66.

"It feels fantastic," Liu said. "Honestly, even without a medal I'm so happy with our skate. We accomplished our goal, and we were able to put out an even better program than last time and show that we have improved upon things, whether they be big or little."

Performing to "A Thousand Times Goodnight" by Abel Korzeniowski, Liu and Nagy once again started strong with a powerful triple twist, and their lifts shined with their Level 4 reverse lasso and axel lasso lifts receiving the highest scores of the program.
 
"We're obviously happy to have medaled at our first Grand Prix together after a long time of both of us not being on the competitive scene; it's super exciting," Liu said. "But regardless, yes we compete for the results, but I'm more proud of us for being the athletes we know we can be every single day and doing it today as well."
 
Valentina Plazas and Maximiliano Fernandez rebounded from a disappointing short program to finish fourth in the free skate and fourth overall with a score of 157.08. Their free skate was awarded 107.57 points.

"We've been working so hard on our jumps and yesterday was so disappointing but today I was happy," Plazas said.

Leaving a bad performance behind and moving forward is a sign of a champion, Fernandez said.

"That's the thing you learn the most about being a champion is losing," he said. "There's people who go out there and they win everything, but I feel like the real champions are the ones that dig deep and start from the bottom and build their way up."
 
In their Grand Prix debut, Isabelle Martins and Ryan Bedard finished fifth in the free skate and fifth overall. Both their free skate score of 102.07 and total score of 154.66 are new international personal bests.

"We have to take it as a learning experience," Martins said. "It was a great competition for us to be at and a good experience as a whole because we've never been at a competition this big before."

Germany's Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel won the title with 184.23 points with Canada's Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud securing the silver medal with 182.59 points.
 
Glenn, Levito on Target for Podium Finishes
U.S. bronze medalist Amber Glenn enjoyed a homecoming as family and friends cheered her on to a second-place finish after the short program.

The veteran skater, who trains in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but hails from Plano, Texas, posted a new international personal best score of 71.45. Her program to "Heads Will Roll" by Elephant Music and Yeah Yeah Yeahs featured an opening triple flip-triple toe combination that generated 11.17 points. Her spins and footwork were all at Level 4.

"I think afterward I'll be more excited about it," she said immediately after competing. "Right now, it's, 'OK, let's go do it again tomorrow.' But to have everyone that I grew up with being here, it was exhilarating."

Glenn, the 2022 Skate America bronze medalist, credited her consistent training and collaboration with Canadian choreographer Kaitlyn Weaver for her success.

"I've been training so well and so hard, even through those injuries, and I took the right steps to get back to here. It's been consistency and training."

On working with Weaver, Glenn said, "She's so creative and I was lucky to have her come to Colorado Springs to work with me. We had such a great time, and this is something that was definitely out of my comfort zone when she brought it to me, but it's a lot of fun. It's taken a lot of work and a lot of perfecting to get it right, but we're still working together."

U.S. champion Isabeau Levito loves Skate America and finds herself in podium position for the second straight year after earning silver in 2022.

The New Jersey-based skater finished with a score of 70.07 but was disappointed with her performance as she sits nearly six points behind leader Loena Hendrickx of Belgium, who is the World bronze medalist.

"I feel like I held back a lot despite having landed the jumps, but I look forward to tomorrow," the 16-year-old said. "I definitely feel like parts of my program were slow and I didn't put enough intensity into it. I was just so deep into doing the program nicely and just wanted it so badly that I feel like I didn't focus enough. There were a lot of minor mistakes. Maybe you don't see them because they're not major things like a fall, but a lot of minor mistakes that added up and tainted how nicely the program could have looked."

Clare Seo, who trains in Colorado Springs, made her Grand Prix Series debut and finished 11th with a score of 58.14.

"I'm a little regretful about the last toe," Seo, the 2022 U.S. junior champion, said. "It was a lot better in the six-minute warm-up. It should have been higher on the takeoff. That happens but I think the rest of my program was OK. I was satisfied with the rest of my program."

Chock and Bates Channel Queen to Rhythm Dance Victory
The World champion ice dance team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates put their creative spin on the iconic music of Queen en route to winning the short program with a score of 84.87.

The four-time and reigning U.S. champions, who made their season debut in Allen and have their eyes set on a fourth Skate America gold, entertained the crowd as they performed flawlessly to "Another One Bites the Dust," "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "I Want It All."
 
Their score was .10 points shy of a Skate America record and they lead the competition by more than seven points.

"We were on tour, and we were watching Bohemian Rhapsody and that hit us over the head with the idea to skate to Queen," Bates said. "It's right here in front of us. It's an incredible movie and there are so many incredible songs in the anthology of Queen that spanned many decades, so we had to narrow it down to just the 80s.

"We were pleased when we found these three pieces of music and we feel like we created a really fun program a strong rhythm dance that's going to grow throughout the season."

Chock and Bates are the defending champions at Skate America and are part of the U.S. legacy that has earned every Skate America title since 2009.
 
Caroline Green and Michael Parsons, sixth at the 2023 World Championships, put out a brand-new rhythm dance, performing to "Still Loving You" and "Rock You Like a Hurricane" by Scorpions.

"We received feedback from judges and skating officials and coaches after the Lombardia Trophy (Sept. 10) that that was not the direction we wanted to be going, so we went back to the drawing board and quickly made another program and got to training it for Skate America," Parsons said.
 
The U.S. silver medalists posted a score of 75.05; they sit just 2.75 points from second place entering Sunday's free dance.

"This definitely isn't the point total or the placement we want for the rhythm dance. We're happy with how we skated and we're back in the direction we want to be going this year," said Parsons, who made his Grand Prix debut at Skate America in 2019. "This program is a much better vehicle for what we want to accomplish this year. Although fifth in the rhythm dance isn't what we want to accomplish, it's on the way to where we want to be."

Siblings Oona Brown and Gage Brown opened their second season on the Grand Prix Series circuit. The New York natives posted a rhythm dance score of 71.34, good enough for seventh in the 10-team field.

The 2002 World Junior champions performed to an Elton John medley and saw better results over their earlier performance two weeks ago at Finlandia Trophy.

"We had a slight mistake in our rhythm [dance] so we wanted to show today that's not who we are," said Gage, who with Oona, split their training time between New York and Montreal. "We want to be as consistent as possible, so putting out a performance not only components-wise but technically, we wanted to show that we can skate very solid."

Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha of Canada rank second with a score of 77.80 while Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France round out the top three with 77.20 points.
  
Competition resumes Sunday with the free dance and women's free skate. Visit the 2023 Humana Skate America Competition Central for the full schedule as well as results, news, bios and more.